I have a confession to make: I hate email. I hate it so much that emails would just pile up, sometimes burying ones that are actually important. That all changed this weekend when I copied this GTD Gmail setup from startup founder Andreas Klinger.

Basically, the system encourages you to make a decision with each item in your inbox and puts all the emails requiring action within easy view. The basic overview:

All emails related to meetings, flights, etc easy to find in the fourth

All done with 0 plugins, using only standard gmail features

When you think about it, every email you get is either something you need to take action on, track, or refer to later. In this setup, you flag all emails appropriately and archive them, leaving you, refreshingly, with inbox zero.

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It takes about 15 minutes to set up. You switch the inbox view to the default view (instead of priority inbox or the confusing tabbed interface). Then you set up your stars to categorize your emails (yellow bang for to-do, red bang for important to-do, question mark for emails awaiting reply, double arrow for emails delegated to someone else, and a purple star for reference emails relating to an upcoming event). And finally, use multiple inboxes with searches that match the special stars and set the multiple inboxes layout to the right side.

You can use different stars if you like or arrange the multiple inboxes horizontally instead of laid out on the right side, but either way Klinger's step-by-step guide is definitely worth a look if you, too, often feel overwhelmed by your inbox.